Talks have be­gun to plot a way for­ward for the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games which is sched­uled to be held in T&T, next year.

In a re­lease sent out by the Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion (CGF) on Fri­day, the ex­ec­u­tive board has de­cid­ed to ex­plore resched­ul­ing op­tions for the Games. 

"The sev­enth Com­mon­wealth Youth Games were sched­uled to take place ‪from Au­gust 1-7, 2021 af­ter T&T was award­ed the com­pe­ti­tion by the CGF in June last year," said the CGF yes­ter­day. "The im­pact of the pan­dem­ic on the glob­al in­ter­na­tion­al sport­ing cal­en­dar means that the Tokyo Olympics and Par­a­lympics have now resched­uled to the sum­mer of 2021 dur­ing the orig­i­nal dates of the Youth Games.

"Fol­low­ing pos­i­tive dis­cus­sions, the CGF has agreed to con­sid­er the best al­ter­na­tive op­tions and time­frames for stag­ing the event in the fu­ture, po­ten­tial­ly in 2023.

"The CGF has giv­en the T&T Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­GA) con­sid­er­a­tion as the first op­tion to host.

"Ho­n­ourable Sham­fa Cud­joe, Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs in the Gov­ern­ment of T&T has com­mit­ted to ask­ing the Cab­i­net to re-ex­am­ine its po­si­tion and pro­vide the nec­es­sary con­fir­ma­tion re­gard­ing the host­ing of the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games and the re­lat­ed ex­pen­di­ture."

On Fri­day, Min­is­ter Cud­joe con­firmed that she met fel­low stake­hold­ers of the qua­dren­ni­al mul­ti-sport event for ath­letes be­tween the ages of 14-18 on Mon­day via a meet­ing on Zoom.

"No fi­nal de­ci­sion has been made on when the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games will be held, no date and no year.

"We spoke on the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and its im­pli­ca­tions. It is a very flu­id thing and we will meet again in June by means of Zoom as the sit­u­a­tion pro­gress­es," the Min­is­ter said.

"We won the right to host the youth Games and we are still avail­able to the host. By Sep­tem­ber we hope to have some­thing con­crete."

The re­lease con­tin­ued with CGF pres­i­dent Dame Louise Mar­tin say­ing: “The resched­ul­ing of the Tokyo Olympics and Par­a­lympics has al­so changed de­mands on sched­ul­ing and re­sources for many of our Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tions (CGAs) and In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions from 2020 to 2021.

“COVID-19 has had a dev­as­tat­ing im­pact across the world and every­one’s ab­solute pri­or­i­ty is the health and well­be­ing of their com­mu­ni­ties.”

“Our de­ci­sion has been made in the best in­ter­ests of ath­letes, fans and cit­i­zens that are to ben­e­fit from these trans­for­ma­tion­al Games.

“We are com­mit­ted over the com­ing months to look at fu­ture dates and host­ing op­tions, to en­sure the right de­ci­sion is tak­en for the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games, so that the re­gion can con­tin­ue to play a lead­ing role as part of the Com­mon­wealth Sports Move­ment.”

The Games will fea­ture eight sports on the pro­gramme in­clud­ing ath­let­ics, beach vol­ley­ball, box­ing, rug­by sev­ens, ten­nis, swim­ming, cy­cling (road races, time tri­als, track) and Fast5 net­ball.